A Path Through Darkness
by Elder-Sword
Summary: A new party arrives at the Rogue Encampment. Tal'oor the Necromancer will be surprised at what shall come to pass.


Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo…so sad…

A Path Through Darkness

Tal'oor stepped through the rippling blue portal into a light drizzle. So this was the Rouge Encampment he thought to himself. Not much but then it had what would be needed for this fight. The necromancer was unimpressed at least for the moment but things might decide to look up given enough time. His thoughts were interrupted as two more blue portals rippled into existence. Through them stepped a lightly armed Paladin and a Barbarian respectively. The Barbarian was a head taller than the Paladin and about half again as wide with muscles built purely for war. He was equipped with a small hand axe, a shield, and only a few healing potions from the looks of it. Tal'oor sighed sadly, the Paladin was not much better off and neither was he himself. It was to bad their elders had not had any of them better equipped, ah well such was life. Well if they were going to work together and from what he'd heard they'd better it would be a good idea to get to know them at least a little.

He walked over the two warriors who had been sizing each other up for combat prowess. The Paladin spoke first, "greetings Necromancer," he did not sound unnerved or distasteful as so many of the Order usually were when talking to a Necromancer.

"Hail bringer of the dead, I look forward to adding my axe to your wand and your sword warrior of the Light." The Barbarian bowed to them both and they both bowed back.

Tal'oor was impressed it seamed he would have capable help with him for this fight. "I am glad to have fighters such as yourselves to fight alongside." Then another portal opened and through it stepped a women armed with a bow and arrows. Her hair was gathered into a ponytail and she stood with an air that spoke of her being used to giving commands. She cast an eye over the two warriors and then looked with distaste at Tal'oor and someone standing off to the side and behind him. Looking back he saw a tall pale women with her hair chopped short and long claws attached to her hands. Great he thought to himself a loner and a control freak with an aversion to Necromancers. So much for cohesiveness in the party, well it may not be permanent he cautioned himself.

The Amazon nodded to the Barbarian and Paladin, "you two come with me," she glanced at Tal'oor and the pale women. "We wont be needing help from either of you," her voice was laced with distaste. Without a backward look she marched the amused looking Barbarian and a rather taken aback Paladin out of the small encampment. Tal'oor turned to ask the pale women if she would like to team up but she had disappeared as well. Tal'oor cursed his luck as he stalked out of the Rogue Encampment. A dirt path worked its way over the relatively flat ground of the region known as the Blood Moor. Grumbling to himself about uncooperative fools he started down the path in the rain. Every now and again he'd find a zombie corpse or a strange spiked creature that looked strangely like a mutated porcupine with most likely a very bad temper. When he came to the first zombie corpse he raised a skeleton armed with a short sword and a round shield. It was one of more basic Necromancer skills, that of raising the dead as skeletons. One of the best was to actually raise the corpse as itself and with enough practice he would be able to do that.

Accompanied by the clacking of bones he made his way over a gently arching bridge and then a ways further to a foreboding looking cave. What was it called again, The Den of Evil that was it. An apt name most likely, a series of steps wound their way into its darkness. Tal'oor produced a torch and lighting it descended down the steps in the cave. The white haired Necromancer was very surprised when the pale women detached herself from the wall were she had been leaning unseen at the bottom of the steps and walked over to him. She eyed him up and down and then cast an eye over the skeleton standing behind him. "Old friend of yours?" she inquired.

"He comes back to give me a hand every once in a while."

"Glad some of us have humor, well most likely need it by the end. Want to see if we can find any more of your dead relatives in this cave?"

"I believe most of them chose more upscale residing places, namely mausoleums. Though I believe there were one or two who were either to poor or to stingy to get a good crypt. We may run into them if were lucky, though they probably wont look so good. Damp air does not go well with the dead." He followed her down one of the branches of the cave torch held high. All of a sudden the skeleton sensing creatures inclined to do its master harm rushed forward to collide with a scantily clad Dark Archer. The skeleton came up on top after the two had rolled into a cave wall and summarily spitted the Dark Archer with his sword.

"Related to you?"

"No," Tal'oor replied, "none of my relatives had bodies like that nor did they dress in so little. The dead on the other hand do not get cold, well not that I know of." Moving farther into the cave they fought several more Dark Archers. Then coming into a large room they saw the other three being mobbed by Carvers short bad tempered demons with red skin, wielding scimitars and small round shields. A few zombies and a couple large hairy creatures taller than the Barbarian by half his height. The Carvers mobbed the skeleton on sight and managed to remove his head and break a variety of bones before the Assassin finished them off with well-placed stabs from her claws and a kick or two. The Barbarian had jumped onto the back of one of the hairy creatures and was busy trying to choke it. The Paladin was making a very valiant effort to kill the other one but was not succeeding. The Amazon was peppering the zombies with arrows but not unlike the several dead Dark Archers with arrows in them zombies didn't respond so well to the death impulse. Tal'oor then remember a very useful spell for killing zombies. He sent out several magical teeth with the satisfying result of tearing apart the zombies when they were almost on top of the Amazon. She looked over gratefully then realized who it was and got a very abashed expression. Then the Barbarian pulled out a knife he'd acquired and plunged it into the neck of the creature he was hanging onto and it crashed forward onto the cave floor. The Paladin saw an opening and lunged in for a killing blow as the Barbarian rolled clear of his fallen foe.

As the Barbarian and Paladin picked up dropped items the Amazon made her way over to Tal'oor and the pale women. "I think I underestimated your abilities and misunderstood your allegiances."

"I'll say you did," the Assassin stated flatly.

"Well could be maybe work together now?"

Tal'oor nodded, "lets give it a try." He opened a portal back to the Rogue Encampment with its wooden palisades and single glowing fire ring. Well maybe the party would be cohesive after all. He didn't see the looks the Paladin and Assassin were exchanging.


End file.
